ch, and the colors dim and
indistinct; anon the sky grew brighter and the column of mist rose
higher; and now it formed more than the half circle, the top a little
above the level of the Fall,--and the blue, and gold, and green, and
orange, and purple, painted so brightly on the retina of the eye that
they seemed to be a part of the very air the observer was inhaling. How
near he stood, impressible Tom, at that moment, to the eternal
mystery!--how near to the workshop in which seem to be flashed out from
eternal forges the beauties of the sunshine and the storm! Climbing down
from the bridge to the end of the rock, leaning tremblingly over and
looking down into the misty gulf below with that Jacob's Ladder of faith
set therein--it is not strange that the journalist for one moment wished
for a line and plummet to drop into that reservoir of golden glory and
bring up some memento of what seemed so near to the celestial;--just as
one wishes, sometimes when the midnight heaven is darkest and the stars
are burning most purely there, to be able to stretch forth a hand among
the stellar lights and bring it back bathed with that radiance which is
so fearfully beautiful.

Leslie had no intention of ascending the tower that day--other days
would be his at Niagara, and something must be saved for each. Besides,
he had breakfasted lightly and an unromantic call for lunch was being
made on faculties quite as delicate as his mental perceptions. He had
accordingly just turned again and ascended the stairs to the bank in
front of the Pavilion, when the fates (ever kind to him in this regard,
as to every other true lover of nature) vouchsafed him one moment's
glimpse of a spectacle often wished for and seen but seldom. Turning for
one last glimpse as he walked away, at that instant his eye was resting
on the sharpest point of the curve of the Horse-shoe Fall, where the
volume of water is evidently deepest, and where from that depth it makes
one broad unbroken sweep of amber green as it plunges over, without one
fleck of foam to mar it. He was just scanning for an instant that calm
depth, and saying that _there_ was after all the majesty of
Niagara--there, where the great green flood approaches the awful
precipice, impelled by a resistless force from above, but unruffled and
untroubled by the approaching fate--bends gracefully and proudly at the
verge, as some dusky Antoinette might do her proud neck when the axe of
the executioner was i